


The Gravity Between Us

by adelaide_rain



Series: this thing we share [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M, Post 6.25, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:59:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8119024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adelaide_rain/pseuds/adelaide_rain
Summary: The Five-0 offices are nothing but windows; they were bound to get caught sooner or later.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the season six finale.

Danny went home with a smile on his face after kissing Steve on the beach (and the sofa, and pressed against the kitchen cabinets while they made dinner, and in the doorway as he was leaving). 

He fell asleep smiling, and woke up smiling, and he’s walking into work smiling, too. He feels like a total goofball, but he also doesn’t really care, because last night was really fucking awesome and for once he feels like something is going right in his life. 

He walks up the stairs of the palace smiling in greeting to a couple of HPD officers, and he’s still smiling as he steps into the office. 

And then he sees Steve cleaning a gun near the window and he’s still smiling but he’s glaring too, and he’s pretty sure that it’s an interesting expression. 

“Hey,” he says sharply as he walks into the war room, where Kono is leaning against the smart table and talking to Steve. She turns to blink at him, but Danny isn’t talking to her. He goes up to Steve, who grins down at him, and Danny feels his lips trying to pull into a smile. _Stop it._ He folds his arms and does his best to look serious. “What are you doing here, Steve?”

“I work here, buddy.”

“No, you don’t. I have a note from your doctor saying that you are not coming into work for another month.”

Steve’s smile slips. “Come on, Danny.”

“No. Don’t _Come on, Danny_ me. Another month, and then at least – at least! – another month after that until you’re allowed to do anything but sit behind a desk. You have been _shot,_ Steven. You nearly goddamn died! Would it kill you to just stay at home?”

Steve puts the gun back in the rack, puts the cloth down, and turns to Danny with his hands on his hips. “What’s the difference between me cleaning a gun at work and at home?”

“While I am very sure that you would be cleaning a gun at home, because you are insane and have very different ideas about relaxation than the rest of humanity, the difference is that at home you can rest-“

“I can rest here.”

“But you _won’t.”_

They glare at each other, and then Steve, damn him, smiles. And Danny smiles, he can’t help it, it's as instinctive as jerking away from a hot surface. They stand there, grinning at each other. Danny is aware that Kono is watching them and probably wondering if their bizarro relationship has just gotten even weirder (the answer is yes, yes it has). 

“It’s been a month already.”

“A month since you got hideously shot and had a _liver transplant!”_

“I’m not going home, Danny.”

“Goddammit, Steve-“

“But I will take it easy. And I’ll stay in the office, I promise. No fieldwork.”

Danny sighs dramatically, shaking his head, and _he’s still smiling._ “You’re the worst, McGarrett, the actual worst,” he says, and as he turns away his hand runs down Steve’s arm because apparently he’s lost all control of himself. 

As he walks to his office he just _knows_ that Kono is watching him and wondering what the hell that was about. 

Sitting at his desk, he opens his email, knowing it’ll give him something else to get annoyed at, multiple something elses. He’s always hated email and paperwork – as much as he likes to talk about following rules and police procedure, this part of it he could do without. Since he’s ostensibly in charge right now while Steve is on leave it’s a hundred times worse than usual, and he looks at all the unread emails in his inbox with dismay. 

As he works through them, he glances up occasionally to see if Steve is still obediently inside and not running around climbing cliffs or paragliding or jumping out of fourth storey windows. He sees him greeting Chin and Lou, sees them chatting, sees Steve go back to his guns and look at them with the kind of focus and affection Danny can only wish he was on the receiving end of. At some point he realises that he’s abandoned the emails, that he’s straight up staring at Steve, with a complicated tangle of annoyance and protectiveness and affection in his belly. That’s not new, exactly, this has been pretty much his chief reaction to Steve for years now, but there’s something else there now, something like the affection but deeper, stronger. 

_Asshole,_ Danny thinks with mostly affection and a little bit of despair, and turns back to his emails. 

One particularly annoying one from the Governor includes attachments of multiple reports and spreadsheets take him a good half hour to get through. During that time, he barely has time to check up on Steve at all. He’s so wrapped up in figures that the knock on the door makes him jump, and then blink at Steve as he pokes his head into the office. 

“Can I come in?”

“Yes. Please, distract me from this report about how we need to cut down on bullet use because we’re costing too much. What do they expect us to do? Start using slingshots?”

“If they do, I can teach you how,” Steve says with a cheeky grin and takes the seat opposite Danny’s desk. He sits back carefully and regards Danny in silence for a few moments. “So. You still mad at me?”

“Always.”

“Come on, Danno.”

“It’s true. Always, every minute of my life.” Steve cocks his head and gives him a look, and Danny waves his hand at him. “Fine, I am not mad at you. But I am concerned.” He stands up, joins Steve on the sofa. He looks at him, feels a tightness in his belly that has little to do with the scar. He opens his mouth with a vague plan of making a joke about their shared liver, but what comes out is, “I’m worried about you, okay? Let me worry.”

“I’m alright. And I told you – I’ll stay in the office. I’ll go home if it’s too much.”

“You better.”

They sit there, side by side, and Danny is very aware of the elephant in the room. As nonchalantly as he can, he reaches over and takes Steve’s hand; Steve squeezes back, relief washing over his face. 

“So this is still a go, huh?” He asks, looking down at their joined hands. 

“Definitely,” Danny says, looking up at Steve and feeling a very strong urge to kiss him. He ignores it; workplace PDAs are a no-no unless it’s a life-or-death situation. Which, knowing Steve, surely can’t be far off. 

He meets Steve’s eyes and he sees _so much_ there, affection and fondness and just – how is Danny supposed to retain his composure with Steve looking at him like that? How?

He manages to look away at his desk for maybe five seconds before his gaze is drawn down at their interlocked fingers. 

“I don’t-” he starts, and sighs. “I don’t know how this is going to work, exactly. I’ve never been involved with a co-worker before.”

“It worked okay with me and Catherine,” Steve says with an easy shrug, and Danny looks up at him, raising an eyebrow; he’s sure that most of that was down to Cath, not Steve. “We just keep on working like we always have. We’re a good team, Danny. That’s not going to change.”

“Like we always have? But with less getting shot, yeah? And less – less diving into active volcanoes.”

“Come on, Danny, I’ve never done that.”

“Only because we’ve only had one case on the Big Island and you weren’t there. It’s only a matter of time, I’m sure of it.”

Steve chuckles and he sounds so _fond,_ the sound wrapping around Danny’s heart and squeezing tight. Seriously, how is he supposed to deal with this? 

“No diving into active volcanoes, then. Okay. Fine.”

“Promise?” Danny asks, looking into Steve’s eyes and leaning a little closer without meaning to. 

“Promise.” Steve moves a little closer, and now their shoulders, their thighs, they’re pressed together, their lips are only a few inches apart. Danny can feel Steve’s warm breath on his lips, and he should pull away, but. 

“I’ll hold you to that, McGarrett.”

“You better,” Steve says, and then kisses him. It’s warm and soft, exploratory, because this is new, this thing between them; for all the kissing they did last night there’s still a lot they need to learn about each other. Something Danny’s very much looking forward to. 

“I don’t approve of workplace PDAs, Steven,” Danny says, but he doesn’t pull away. His lips brush against Steve’s as he speaks, which he thinks maybe makes him some kind of hypocrite. 

“Duly noted,” Steve says, and leans in again, putting a hand to the back of Danny’s neck. His fingers run through the hair at the nape of his neck and Danny shivers, shifting a little closer to Steve despite his protests. Steve’s mouth is so _warm_ and the kiss is slow and easy, so warm and so good. Danny’s hand is resting on Steve’s hip, and his fingers duck underneath his t-shirt, skimming just above the waistband. Steve _moans,_ breathless, quiet, and fuck, _fuck_ Danny likes that sound. He’s looking forward to hearing all the sounds Steve makes, to slowly drawing them out of him over the next weeks, months. 

Steve’s hand slides down to Danny’s thigh, scratching his nails over the outside seam of his trousers, and Danny makes a noise of his own that might be embarrassing if not for the low growl Steve gives in response. 

And then there’s a knock at the door.

Danny jerks back, reality tumbling down around them and blinks at Steve before looking over at the door. 

_Oh god,_ he thinks. 

Chin is standing there, very studiously looking away, but Danny has a glass door, there is no possible way that Chin didn’t just see his bosses making out on the sofa like teenagers. 

“Busted,” Steve says with a grin, damn him, and Danny sighs.

Wiping his mouth, he stands and pulls his trousers so that they’re a little more comfortable. He’s not all the way hard but he was getting there, and seriously, _seriously,_ what is wrong with him? Two minutes alone with Steve and his workplace PDA policy goes flying out the window like a rocket powered grenade. 

Danny opens the door and tries to look professional as he nods at Chin in greeting. 

“Everything okay?”

Chin _is_ a professional, and so he manages not to smirk as he looks at Danny, but amusement is dancing in his eyes. “Someone’s here to see you from the Governor’s office. Something about discussing the ammo budget?”

“Doesn’t that sound like fun,” Danny says, and throws a glare at Steve over his shoulder; he only gets a grin in response. 

Honestly. 

Danny takes the accountant or whatever he is into Steve’s office. He’s a very severe man wearing a suit and tie, something Danny is sure Steve would have a lot to say about. He’s brought lots of printed copies of budgets and targets and graphs, and when he’s finished with his money-saving spiel, he looks at Danny smugly, like he’s sure he’s proved his point. Danny cocks his head, pinning the guy with a look that makes his smile waver, before pointing out all the times, all the many, many times, that Five-0 has basically saved O’ahu from certain destruction. He goes in chronological order and Danny isn’t even halfway through the team’s second year before the accountant throws up his hands and says he’ll take another look at the budget, move some money around. 

He leaves, adjusting his tie, and Danny watches him go, feeling exhausted. 

_Fucking bureaucrats._

Stretching, he winces at the points of pain in joints and muscles that remind him that he’s still pretty far from 100%, then goes out into the main room. The rest of them are gathered around the smart table, talking, and Danny wonders if Chin’s managed discretion. Judging from Steve’s relaxed expression he’d think so but he knows better than to assume that Steve’s reactions are in line with that of a normal person. 

“You enjoying doing my job, Danny?” Steve asks as he approaches, and Danny gives him a long suffering look. 

“Oh, yes, very much. What’s more fun that budgets? He had graphs, too, printed in colour, just for kicks.”

Lou folds his arms, looking down at Danny. “You know, I’ve been wondering. How come you're the one in charge when McGarrett is away? I outrank you, Chin outranks you-“

Danny shrugs. “Hey, there has to be something good about being partnered with this maniac.” 

"Looked like there was something _really_ good going on in your office before I interrupted you," Chin says and Danny gasps like he's been betrayed and he has, a little bit. 

Steve only grins, because of course Steve would grin about something like that, then shrugs, leaning against the computer table with his arms folded. He looks at Danny with a crooked little smile, head cocked ever so slightly. His eyes are stormy-sky grey in this light, and Danny feels himself fall a little deeper, wonders if he'll ever stop falling. "We'd have to tell them sooner or later, Danno."

"Tell us what?" Lou asks, and Kono looks at them with narrowed eyes and suspicion before looking at Chin. One grin and a bit of cousin telepathy from him and she laughs, delighted, clapping her hands together.

 _"Seriously?_ Finally!" She pauses and chews her lip before grinning at Chin. "You think that bet with HPD is still good?"

"Please tell me you weren't betting on us," Danny says flatly, and she laughs again, coming over to slap him companionably on the shoulder. 

"Me and the whole force, brah."

Danny sighs and wishes he was surprised.

"Okay, I know I haven't been here as long as the rest of you guys, but I feel like I'm seriously missing something," Lou says, but before Danny can say something - before he can even consider what to say - Steve is grabbing Danny's wrist, pulling him close and kissing him. Sweet and chaste, but Kono gives a cheer and Danny can hear Chin's quiet chuckle and Lou's _oh!_

"Subtle, Steve," Danny mutters, but he keeps his hand on Steve's waist as he looks at Lou. It's true, he hasn't known them as long as the others but his grin is wide and joyful. 

"I'm with Kono on this," he says. _"Finally."_

"Yeah, yeah," Danny sighs, letting himself lean a little closer to Steve. "Get it all out of your systems now."

"I thought you two were together for _months_ back when I first met you," Lou says, still grinning. "I thought it was sweet, even back when I thought Steve was an asshole." 

"Steve _is_ an asshole," Danny says, lifting his head. "As shown in his sudden predilection for workplace PDAs. That is unprofessional, Steven."

"And yet you haven't moved away," Steve says, pressing a kiss to Danny's hair and yes, he has a point there. 

"I'll let you off, since you're not officially at work," he says, and Steve grins a little wider. "Which I've not forgotten about, by the way, don't think I have. I'm going to be very angry if I see you in here tomorrow."

Steve looks thoughtful, but he relents, which suggests that he’s finding it harder than expected; Danny has the good grace not to say anything. “What about at home tomorrow? I’ll cook.”

“Oh my god, are you trying to give us cavities?” Kono asks, and Danny’s not sure she’s stopped grinning since she found out about them – or maybe it’s just that her bet with HPD was bigger than Danny would’ve guessed. 

“Why don’t you all come round?” Steve asks. “I can fire up the grill, get some Longboards for you guys – and some pineapple juice for us.”

“Please don’t,” Danny deadpans, and Steve laughs. When Danny looks up at him his expression is soft, sweet, and Danny thinks that Steve’s happy the rest of them know. Actually, so is Danny. 

After all, they’re family.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago. I decided to post it today a) to celebrate the premiere of season seven and b) before 7.01 makes it entirely obsolete xD 
> 
> About Danny being in charge in lieu of Steve – that seems to be what happened when Steve Dear Danny’d him, and Chin already outranked him at that point. I figured even with Lou on the team now, it’d still stand. I’m not sure if it’s ever been made entirely official who’s second in command?
> 
> As for the series name… I was trying to think of something and this made me laugh. I have a terrible sense of humour. I’m not sorry. 
> 
> And lastly: [my tumblr.](http://raininginadelaide.tumblr.com)


End file.
